Kimberlé Crenshaw co-founded the AAPF and serves as the Executive Director. Crenshaw, Professor of Law at UCLA and Columbia Law School, is a leading authority in the area of Civil Rights, Black feminist legal theory, and race, racism and the law. Her articles have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, National Black Law Journal, Stanford Law Review and Southern California Law Review. She is the founding coordinator of the Critical Race Theory Workshop, and the co-editor of the volume, Critical Race Theory: Key Documents That Shaped the Movement. Read More

Dr. Luke Charles Harris co-founded the AAPF and is Director of Programming. Harris is the former Chair of the Department of Political Science at Vassar College, where he teaches American Politics and Constitutional Law. Harris clerked for the late A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., the distinguished legal historian and former Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit; served for two years as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Warwick, School of Law in Coventry England; and for one year as a Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Sociology. Read More

Naimah Hakim is a recent graduate of Princeton University (2016) where she majored in Anthropology and earned minors in African American Studies and Gender & Sexuality Studies. During the past year, Naimah completed a research fellowship at the UN Office of the Women's International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF) and served as an intern with the Brooklyn Volunteer Lawyers Project. She is eager to bring her passions for global human rights, intersectional feminism, and education to the work of the African American Policy Forum.

Madeline Cameron Wardleworth is the CISPS Post Doctoral Research Scholar. Madeline formerly worked as a litigation lawyer at a global firm, where she directed an urban pro bono clinic and led her office’s Human Rights Law program. While in practice she undertook independent research on female access to justice and technology. Her research has been presented at universities including Oxford, Melbourne, and Yale. Madeline served as Secretary of her state’s Women’s Bar, and sat on the Australian Lawyers for Human Rights’ Subcommittee for Women and Girls’ Rights. Madeline previously interned at the Australian Consulate, Paris. She holds a Master of Laws from Columbia, from which she graduated as a Kent Scholar. While studying at Columbia Law she served as a board member of the Columbia Law Women's Association, Columbia Law Feminist Society, Columbia Society for International Law, and If/When/How - Lawyering for Reproductive Justice.

G’Ra Asim, a writer and musician based in Harlem, is AAPF’s Writing Fellow and a columnist for The Baffler.com. He holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University and is a former graduate teaching fellow in Columbia’s Undergraduate Writing Program. A graduate of Emerson College, his writing has appeared in Slate, Salon, Mosaic Magazine, and Punknews.org. When not writing or teaching, he sings, plays bass and writes lyrics for New York pop punk quartet babygotbacktalk, who were recently named one of Afropunk’s “Top 8 Punkest Bands on the Planet Right Now.” His scholarly interests include the relationship between style, identity and Western norms of citizenship.

Kevin Minofu is the AAPF Postgraduate Legal Research Scholar. He graduated from Columbia Law School with his LLM as a James Kent Scholar in May 2018 where he had research interests in civil rights, legal philosophy and comparative constitutional law. He studied at Columbia on a Joseph P. Heffernan Fellowship. Prior to joining AAPF, he worked as a Legal Fellow at Independent International Legal Advocates, an international law advisory nonprofit in New York, on a LLM Public Interest and Government Fellowship from Columbia Law School. He holds both an undergraduate degree in economics and a law degree from the University of Cape Town in South Africa where he won the Jurisprudence Class Medal, the Ephraim Kluk International Law Prize and the Blumberg Prize for Service to the Student Community. He also spent several years practicing as an antitrust/competition associate at a large commercial law firm in Johannesburg, South Africa and is an admitted attorney at the South African bar.

Julia Sharpe-Levine is a writer, activist and theatre-maker living in Brooklyn. After serving as the Associate Director for 2 years, she now serves as AAPF's Arts and Education Program Director. She has led workshops on theatre and social engagement, and has written articles on politics and intersectionality for publications such as the Huffington Post and Rewire Magazine. She has a Master's degree in Applied Theatre from CUNY's School of Professional Studies and a Bachelor's degree in drama and Chinese from Vassar College, where she graduated with honors. She is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society.

Michael Kramer is the Intersectionality Fellow at UCLA School of Law, where he earned his Juris Doctorate with a specialization in Critical Race Studies, and has worked with Kimberlé Crenshaw. Previously, Michael worked with the Washington State Attorney General’s Civil Rights Unit where he worked on various issues of civil rights, immigration, and antidiscrimination on both a state and national level. In addition, Michael has worked with two tribal nation supreme courts (Hualapai in Arizona and Ho-Chunk in Wisconsin) where he assisted in legal research, drafting legal opinions, and developing their law. As a law student, Michael was a semi-finalist in the Jean-Pictet International Humanitarian Law Competition, honored with the prestigious Order of the Barrister award as a top oral advocate, and manager of the National Black Law Journal. Michael’s scholarship has involved voting rights, tribal jurisprudence, and discrimination in disability law.

Abby Dobson is AAPF's Artist-In-Residence. A Sonic Conceptualist Artist, Dobson’s sound is the alchemy of R&B/Soul, jazz, classic pop, gospel, and folk, forging a gem that erases musical boundaries. Abby has performed at venues such as S.O.B's, Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, Apollo Theater, Blue Note Jazz Club, and The Tonight Show (Jay Leno). Her debut CD, "Sleeping Beauty: You Are the One You Have Been Waiting On” was released in 2010 to glowing reviews. Abby received a Juris Doctorate degree from Georgetown University Law Center and a Bachelor’s degree from Williams College in Political Science and History. An independent scholar, Abby’s research interests focus on the intersection of race and gender in the imagination, creation, consumption, and distribution of music. Passionate about using music as a tool for empathy cultivation, Abby creates music to privilege black female voices and highlight the human condition. She is committed to shining her artistic light - volunteering with the African American Policy Forum and the National Organization for Women, NYC Chapter. www.abbydobsonsings.com